Snowflakes are freezing a generation out of work with lazy attitudes — and they have missed the basic truth that ‘life is tough’

IF you ever wonder exactly what is meant by the term “snowflake”, I advise you to take a look at Eddie Ledsham.

He is a 22-year-old who has left the teaching profession after just one term, citing harm to his “emotional and psychological wellbeing”.

In a vlog explaining his decision, the whimpering Merseysider tells us that though he had wanted to be a teacher since Year 10, he found that he just couldn’t hack life in the job because the “impossible hours” and “unrealistic targets” were driving him “to tears”.

The eight-year-olds he taught at a small primary school were, in his own words, the “best class you could imagine”. But the “sheer time constraints” on his personal life (he complains that he was often in work until 6.30pm) were unreasonable, something which he had not been warned about during his three years at university.

Now, I’m friends with a number of teachers and I’m more than willing to believe that the work is hard.

The marking must be dull, the children trying and the hours (apart from the long holidays) are tough.

But the basic truth, which Mr Ledsham and many more of my generation somehow seems to have missed, is that life is tough.

Too many negative feelings for you to hear.

Gainful employment does have the annoying habit of getting in the way of one’s personal life. But for most, skipping the odd night out is a fair price to pay to secure the sort of freedoms which others — in other times and other places — could only dream about.

Yet for generation snowflake, this sort of sacrifice is “unreasonable”.

Aided by the well of narcissism that is social media, a small but vocal group of my generation — I’ve just turned 24 — has built itself a “safe space” which doubles as a bunker to escape from anything remotely resembling grind.

In this safe space, constant complaints are not only tolerated but encouraged, and the finger of blame is pointed anywhere but at the snowflake.

If you can’t keep up with work it’s because your university didn’t teach you how. If you can’t win an argument it’s because the other side of the debate triggered too many negative feelings for you to hear.

And if you lose a vote, it’s because “the establishment” is rigged against you.

If this small, self-mollycoddling group of millennials were only limiting their own job prospects, it wouldn’t bother me in the slightest.

For those outside the safe space who are willing to work hard to get on, it is darkly funny watching these hysterics self-destruct.

And their laziness serves as a useful reminder of how not to behave in the workplace.

But unfortunately, in Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and Tumblr (look it up and marvel at the awfulness if you have never heard of it) these people have found themselves a platform on which to self-publicise — and that means my whole generation has been tarred with the same brush.

t may sound glib, but it isn’t.

Imagine, for a moment, you are the Wirral headteacher for whom Eddie Ledsham, from Wallasey, used to work.

When you were recruiting last time, you had a number of candidates to pick from, of varying ages and with varying levels of experience.

You went with Eddie, perhaps because his youth implied a bright-eyed and bushy-tailed sort of enthusiasm which would be inspiring for your children.

Or perhaps, at least partly, because you wanted to help a young guy taking his first steps on the road to adult life.

Either way, you have been seriously let down. He has not only deserted you in the middle of the school year, leaving you recruiting at a time when almost all teachers already have jobs, but he has also scared off other potential candidates by bad-mouthing your school all over the internet.

You gambled on youth once. Next time you are going to go with experience. And you wouldn’t be alone.

A quick Google search brings up hundreds of articles, quotes and reports effectively warning employers off millennials.

The horror stories are endless. One is of a millennial who requested a promotion on their second day in the job and complained to HR when their boss did not comply.

Another is of a woman who claimed she was being discriminated against for her disability (dyslexia) when her boss gently reminded her how to spell a simple word.

The snowflakes may be a small minority of the millennial generation but their shrill voices rise high above the rest of ours.

In the social media sphere in which these people operate, sympathy is endless. In the real world, where mitigating circumstances do not exist, it is not.

If my generation is to amount to anything other than a national liability, the Eddie Ledshams of this world need to get a grip — and fast. – The Sun

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